A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

50 comments:

Anonymous
said...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- World equity markets lost $5.2 trillion in the month of January, taking back previous market gains and leaving developed markets in the red for the trailing three months, said Standard & Poor's

Emerging markets fell 12.44% in January, while developed markets lost 7.83%, according to S&P, making it one of the worst-ever starts to a new year.

"Even though the U.S. is not the only locomotive on this train, we are the largest one, and if we're having difficulty, it's a world difficulty," said Howard Silverblatt, Senior Index Analyst at Standard & Poor's.

"It's sort of a little poetic justice in that the people that brewed this toxic Kool-Aid found themselves drinking a lot of it in the end"----------------------It looks to me like a lot of these people are just walking away from the Kool-Aid which they brewed.

And they don't care who will end up having to bathe in it, although somebody certainly will.

What is baffling to me is that CEOs of banking institutions, Brokerage firms, GSEs, etc., Politicians and Chief Economists are compensated $100s of millions of dollars and they're STILL holding their post! They're STILL standing...

The ONLY CEOs that were forced to resign are Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch and Charles Prince of Citigroup! AND this is ONLY because Merrill received a a cash infusion of $6.6 billion from Korean, Kuwaiti and Japanese investment funds. Citigroup received a cash infusion of $10 billion from China, Kuwait and other foreign governments!

Their resignation HAD to be part of the deal! These foreigners aren't stupid, they know if they want to receive a return on their investment DEAD WEIGHT must be removed!!!

...and still they come to me wanting a loan they can't afford and don't deserve...

The last two potential borrowers I talked to haven't paid their rent on time, have collections for delinquent cable and phone bills (oh they have cable and phone turned on but it's in mommy's name) and they have had late pays on credit cards. Yet they feel they are ready to buy a house. No wait, they feel they DESERVE to be able to buy a house.This is the big problem in our society--- everyone feels they deserve to have whatever they want. Like it's a right or something.Well, that's all the time I have to write for now--- I'm going to look at new SUVs. Yes, a gas sipping economy car would be more ecologically and society friendly; but BY GOD I DESERVE A SUV AND I'M GOING TO HAVE ONE!

Greenscum did not timely take away the punch bowl like a responsible Fed would have.

The revelers then concocted a toxic witches brew in the punch bowl. All those who drank are now falling over like flies (sub-prime lenders).

Now the fed is trying to spike the punch bowl to get everyone to come back, but those who've not keeled over are ill and still chocking on the witches brew so the last thing they are going to do is belly up to the bowl for another drink of toxic kool-aid just because there is a little dash of sugar added to it!!!

and O'Neal and Prince didn't leave the companies empty handed. They certainly didn't have to give back the earnings and the bonuses from previous years, even though that money was supposedly given because these guys were doing the right thing for the companies. Selling fraudulent loans is very rewarding even when they catch up to the people responsible. Being kicked out but being allowed to keep the hundreds of millions that shouldn't have been given to begin with is not a bad deal.

American homebuilders are shocked...shocked!...that a five-year spree of massive overbuilding has created problems.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7078492.stm

Quote:The devastating effect of a property crash is taking its toll right across the building industry.

And nowhere is the pain more evident than among house builders.

At the National Association of Home Builders annual construction industry forecast conference, no one was enjoying the fancy lunch their organisation had put on.

Instead, their ashen faces showed that they had only just grasped how serious the overall situation had become.

The NAHB's chief economist, David Sieders, had just told them that house building would contract by 50% in the next two years, cutting employment by 1-2 million jobs and wiping out many firms - and he fears that prices might not start rising again until 2010.

Quote:According to the WSJ, credit-card delinquencies are rising across the nation, a sign that some Americans are at the end of their rope financially. The result could be a sharp pullback in consumer spending that would further weaken the U.S. economy.

Quote:Weyerhaeuser Co. said Friday it swung to a fourth-quarter loss as the deteriorating U.S. housing market cut into demand for lumber — a downturn the paper and wood products company expects will continue through 2008.

Quote:According to Bloomberg, The risk of companies defaulting soared to a record on speculation funds invested in credit derivatives are being liquidated, according to traders of credit-default swaps. snip

Quote:Henry To: "The best thing that one can do to his/her financial health right now is to stop watching CNBC and to stop reading the business section of newspapers."

Quote:As mortgage crisis claims more Bay Area homes, an increasing number of tenants face rapid evictions.

Quote:Wal-Mart says its shoppers are redeeming their holiday gift cards for basic items — pasta sauce, diapers, laundry detergent — instead of iPods or DVDs.---------------------------------The problem is, we literally don’t have the energy to crawl back up. We are at the end of the fossil fuel era. The energy contribution to society, for the production of non-energy goods and services, is falling rapidly. The maniacal shenanigans of the housing boom were merely and attempt to continue business as usual in a faltering economy.

It will take a complete restructuring of our society’s infrastructure, and our social traditions, to rebuild a working civilization after this one fails. This process will take many decades, and perhaps centuries, to complete.

While I respect Warren Buffet, this is another example of him being wrong. (Last year Warren Buffet said that subprime was contained and was not going to be a serious drag on the economy.)

The investment bankers might have spilled some Kool-Aid on their shirt while passing it out, but they didn't drink much of it. Wall Street employees are walking away with record bonuses this year (average investment bank employee salary $600,000 (that includes administrative staff such as secretaries) plus an average bonus of around $200,000).

The Spanish government is reportedly considering a rescue package to "refloat" the housing market and slow job losses in the construction sector, raising concerns over investor appetite for the country's sovereign bonds.

Premier Jose Luis Zapatero is eyeing the Public Credit Institute for a €10bn (£7.5bn) credit line to help developers and homeowners weather the squeeze following the partial closure of the capital markets, according to the financial daily Expansion.

The Credit Institute is an arm of the Spanish treasury, used to promote technology and green energy.

The government has also proposed a tax rebate of up to €400 per person, comparable in scale to the new fiscal package proposed by George W Bush in the US.

The bail-out scheme has caused a serious rift in the ruling Socialist party. Finance minister Pedro Solbes has reportedly warned that use of public funds could cause markets to reassess Spain's credit-worthiness, triggering a further rise in spreads between Spanish and German 10-year bonds.

JaneZinfandel said... 'As the sale of our country moves forward, I am not so sure that the foreigners won't run things better than we have.'

Ha, these foreigners are Oil rich arab sheiks, they have been very lucky that ‘we’ have discovered fossil fuel and figured out that it can be utilized for energy. ‘We’ figured out how to pump, process and ship it to ourselves.Their contribution has been coincidental; to have fossil fuel reserves under the deserts they were squatting on at the time. Brutally took ownership from their own peoples.Now they are using the excess to diversify into our failing banking system rather then investing in there own countries.They don’t even know how to flush a toilet let alone run a complex financial institution.

JaneZinfandel said... 'As the sale of our country moves forward, I am not so sure that the foreigners won't run things better than we have.'

He said: Ha, these foreigners are Oil rich arab sheiks, they have been very lucky that ‘we’ have discovered fossil fuel and figured out that it can be utilized for energy. ‘We’ figured out how to pump, process and ship it to ourselves.

She said: Who says they are all Arabs? There are Chinese, Japanese, Europeans, South Americans, all awash in dollars and they want to buy our assets.

She also said:What is with the 'we' crap? Your grandparents and parents made it possible for you to live this petrol life of lux. You didn't do a goddamn thing so quit taking credit for their accomplishments. Also there hasn't been any good music since the 1980's. Gen X & Y are total failures at culture. Too busy lecturing everyone I guess.

He said: Their contribution has been coincidental; to have fossil fuel reserves under the deserts they were squatting on at the time.

She said:That is right. That means it belongs to them. Not us. Lucky coincidence for them.

He said:Brutally took ownership from their own peoples.

She said:I seem to remember another group of people who brutally took ownership a while back. Murdered and took the land that didn't belong to them from the Indians.

He said:Now they are using the excess to diversify into our failing banking system rather then investing in there own countries.

She said:Here is a link for you:

First:Saudi Arabia's $35 billion construction boomSaudi Arabia comprises the largest construction market in the whole of the Middle East with multi-billion dollar projects under way and many more in the planning stage by both the public and private sectors.

http://tinyurl.com/39nhbc

Second: here is another link for you with pictures!! A picture is better than a thousand words:

Dubai ConstructionCheck out these projects planned for the oil rich city in the United Arab Emirates

http://tinyurl.com/3xd8xjFunny I don't see anyone shitting in the sand in these pictures.

She said:The roads, bridges, water treatment plants, sewage plants, electrical grid and all of the other infrastructure of the USA is falling apart. Why isn't the government of the USA investing in its own country?

They don’t even know how to flush a toilet let alone run a complex financial institution.

When you finish clicking on those links to Bahrain & Saudi and you are feeling really inferor, just remember that the f**ng dollars that they are using to build the new Arab Super Cities are the dollars that should have stayed here (after your generation realized that we needed to find something besides oil) and rebuilt Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Newark and all the other crumbling, depressing slum cities of the Unites States of Arkansas.

It is humbling when you see what Bahrain is doing with their money.Course you wouldn't know anything about humble would you?

I don’t really care about your tastes and preference in wine or music.I personally believe that my tastes and preference are superior to yours.

Thus far I have not seen any other large sums of money coming from Japan or Europe etc. they are experiencing their own financial issues.

The money the Arab dictators are spending is Not their money; it equally belongs to the remaining lucky citizens who happen to live there as well.Spending it on insane huge ‘show off’ projects without the permissions of the millions of (overwhelming majority of suffering populations) Arabs, instead of building infrastructure hospitals and schools, is outright theft.These huge expensive castles in the sky you are pointing to, are worthless to anyone other then the cruel dictators.(Who died and made them kings?.. hmmm. thousands and thousands of innocent)

Yes ‘We’ it is our current knowledge and experience in Science, our companies our skills and creativity that are making it all happen..Not the oppressed uneducated Whabbi graduates.

In the process of evolution we make mistakes and sometimes huge mistakes some of our infrastructure and cities are going thru a down turn but there is no doubt or question they will come back better bigger and stronger.Unlike the closed minded societies in the middles east that are stagnant and aren’t moving forward.

The funny part is that you mention Humble in relation to Arabs.It is a laughing contradiction.

In our times there are no other peoples that would voluntarily destroy their very own flesh and blood in such a gruesome manner for; say being offended of my political or religious opinion, then an Arab homicidal maniac.

No other people are soo easily humiliated then Arabs, a cartoon or a joke will enrage them to the degree of extreme violence.

They are the living opposite of ‘Humble’.Ego is the driving factor for why Middle Eastern conflicts are soo difficult to resolve.

It was intelligent people who got us all into this financial mess and NOW we are expecting these supposed intelligent people to get us out of this mess...

Intelligence is NO longer objective. Intelligence has NOW become subjective!**********************************In the Spanish language, there are several words to describe someone who is intelligent but they are used to express different "types" of intelligence. One type is expressed with the adjective "vivo/a". I think that the best way to translate one way of using "vivo" would someone who is bright, astute but in a more sinister way than anything; like someone who is bright enough to know how to take advantage of someone or some situation. Like a hustler, gangster, serial killer, etc. You get the point. The problem isn't that intelligence is overrated, it's that it is too vague of a word, it needs qualification. The people on Wall Street and especially the mortgage industry people, are not intelligent but rather are smart like crazy psychopaths are smart. You know what I mean? Intelligence without a conscience is something else that I can't quite find a word for in English. Most high power CEOs/ business people have some of the same qualities as psychopaths - a sort of lack of conscience and care. They are completely narcicistic and self-centered but intelligent. I'd rather be more on the common sense side of intelligence with a conscience.

JaneZinfandel said…‘She also said:What is with the 'we' crap? Your grandparents and parents made it possible for you to live this petrol life of lux. You didn't do a goddamn thing so quit taking credit for their accomplishments.’

The other day, I purchased a brand spanking new ahmudalbabaIt is an arab invention thatNOT!Has any one here ever seen a product invented in an arab country?

Even imported Middle Eastern canned olives are owned and run by westerners.

So to imagine a 5-sigma or 10-sigma event is difficult to even conceive. Yet history shows that such events happen a lot more often than the normal bell curve would dictate. This is called the fat tails phenomenon.

Even though high-sigma events are not expected, they do happen. The stock market crash of 1987 was a 22-sigma event. The assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand that started World War I was at least a 10- or 20-sigma event, yet it happened. Many other examples could be given.

In my opinion, the U.S. and the world is on the precipice of a series of high-sigma events in the financial, energy, ecological and infrastructure spheres in the coming years. This prediction can be made because the systems in these areas and others have become so overstretched—and thus extremely fragile.

To Johnmerlot: LOL -- Dude, they don't even have toilets -- they f##king squat. So much for their 'progress' -- but then again, what do you expect from a freakin group of nomads who are into stoning women for drinking coffee with men not their husbands????

How ironic. I'm drinking Kool aid as we speak. My son made it & it damn near killed me. I think he followed the reciepe to the letter & stopped at two quarts of water. So his version is empty packet add one cup of sugar & two qrts h2o. Sheesh, kids. Where's the margarita mix I'll fix this....

The police squads who've been arresting the NY Mob Families should take their crime fighting operations to the White House, US Capital and dozens of gov agencies, Bushco propaganda main-stream media companies and employees.

The US citizens cant take much more GOP/DEM lies, deceptions, fairy tales, thefts, tin-foil logic, deaths and destruction of their own country and citizens prosperity.

JaneZinfandel said… ‘She also said: What is with the 'we' crap? Your grandparents and parents made it possible for you to live this petrol life of lux. You didn't do a goddamn thing so quit taking credit for their accomplishments.’

The other day, I purchased a brand spanking new ahmudalbaba It is an arab invention that NOT! Has any one here ever seen a product invented in an arab country?

The Arabs invented algebra. You wouldn't be stuffin cheetos and staring at XBox without the Arabs.

Mrs. JaneZinfandel, Any idea of the punishment if you where caught with a glass of Zinfandel in Dubai or Saudi Arabia?

The subject is the Arabs wealth and our lack thereof. Why do you people always change the subject?

I never said I liked their culture. I SAID that they have all of the money that we GAVE them and our country is becoming a broken, rundown junk pile, while their countries are using the wealth we GAVE them to do beautiful things.

And everyone here is in DENIAL (not a river). The United States of Arkansas is the best in the world!!Go click on the links and look at what the Arabs are doing, and then if you don't have anything factual to add, don't.

I don’t really care about your tastes and preference in wine or music. I personally believe that my tastes and preference are superior to yours.

Since you know nothing about me other than what I wrote then it would be logical that you feel your taste and preferences are superior to everyones. That makes you a conceited ass. Next....

Thus far I have not seen any other large sums of money coming from Japan or Europe etc. they are experiencing their own financial issues.

Oh, does Japan and Europe send the money to you first? You must be a very important financier. What types of financial issues are they experiencing since you are definitely in the International Loop....

The money the Arab dictators are spending is Not their money; it equally belongs to the remaining lucky citizens who happen to live there as well. Spending it on insane huge ‘show off’ projects without the permissions of the millions of (overwhelming majority of suffering populations) Arabs, instead of building infrastructure hospitals and schools, is outright theft.

You mean like the way our government hasn't done flip about the electric grid in the USA since it was built? Or the dams that are leaking, the bridges that are falling, New Orleans still flooding everytime it rains. You mean like that????

These huge expensive castles in the sky you are pointing to, are worthless to anyone other then the cruel dictators. (Who died and made them kings?.. hmmm. thousands and thousands of innocent)

Yes ‘We’ it is our current knowledge and experience in Science, our companies our skills and creativity that are making it all happen..

Yes that is why the Japanese and others consult you. Your creativity and vast knowledge are invaluable to the world's finaciers. Most high school grads in this country can't spell, punctuate or construct a grammatically correct sentence.

Not the oppressed uneducated Whabbi graduates.

You mean the foreign Arab students I went to school with that were all in the Engineering Department??

In the process of evolution we make mistakes and sometimes huge mistakes some of our infrastructure and cities are going thru a down turn but there is no doubt or question they will come back better bigger and stronger.

Damn an expert on Darwin too? Damn it must be hard being you. Does your family have to wear sunglasses when you stroll through the room.

Unlike the closed minded societies in the middles east that are stagnant and aren’t moving forward.

How many times have you been there?

The funny part is that you mention Humble in relation to Arabs. It is a laughing contradiction.

No I mentioned humble in relation to me. Shining stars such as yourself don't need humble.

In our times there are no other peoples that would voluntarily destroy their very own flesh and blood in such a gruesome manner for; say being offended of my political or religious opinion, then an Arab homicidal maniac.

Okay

No other people are soo easily humiliated then Arabs, a cartoon or a joke will enrage them to the degree of extreme violence.

They are the living opposite of ‘Humble’. Ego is the driving factor for why Middle Eastern conflicts are soo difficult to resolve.

and double okay. Like I said Lecturers R Us.

Personally I like Pinot Noir, but Andrew Hac has a thing for Jane Zinfadel, so I am her right now. We all get to be something we are not in here don't we?

The Arabs invented algebra. You wouldn't be stuffin cheetos and staring at XBox without the Arabs.

It was a Persian who invented algebra, you nitwit. Try calling a Persian (Iranian) and Arab, and they'll pound you into the ground. Anyway, he just built up on what the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians had done. Now try coming up with something that the Muslims have created in the past 1,000 years.

Which part of the world are you talking about? Most of Europe is like the rust belt. The French, Italians, Spanish, Germans etc are all old and dying off. Russia's population is about to fall off a cliff. The Arabs are crapping in their pants over what to do when the wells dry up. Africa is a cesspool of war, famine and disease. Europe's housing bubble is much bigger than ours. Compared to Latin America, our government looks honest. You people are living in a dream world if you think the rest of the world is fine and dandy.

The Arabs can build all they want. They have no water, no food, no commerce other than oil. If the world's economy were to collapse, would you rather be in the middle of the desert or close to the Great Lakes?

Jane, darling, have you ever been to these exciting Arab countries you're so apeshit over?

Dubai and Shanghai are full of rich westerners. I doubt you've been to the shantytowns where the average Emirati or Chinese laborer who built those pretty empty skyscrapers lives.

There's a shantytown about 15 MK down the road from Dubai which has about twice the population of that pretty showcase city on the coast. It's all corrugated tin shacks, shit in the streets, and lots of hungry regularly-beaten foreign and Emirati laborers who built the Burj Dubai and all those other pretty buildings you're squealing about.

In Shanghai, most of the skyscrapers are empty, and the average wage is under $500 a month.

Dubai and Shanghai are just the McMansions of the eastern world -- there's no difference between their big fancy buildings that serve no function that they cannot afford, and "ours."

Greed and a lack of caring about others is found all over humanity -- as is stupidity of greedy government "investors." The Chinese and the Arabs will get raped just as hard up the rear -- without lube -- as the Americans and Europeans will. And they've got big restive populations of starving, fucked-over middle class people without opportunity or hope... much larger than any western country.

We'll get some big government socialist programs and new entitlements paid for with printing press cash for a decade or two. China and the Arab world will get full-fledged revolutions kicked off by starving angry peasants who will feast upon the flesh of their rich government bureaucrats and who will trash the piss out of those fancy empty buildings in their showcase McMansion cities.

Jane, darling, have you ever been to these exciting Arab countries you're so apeshit over?

Dubai and Shanghai are full of rich westerners. I doubt you've been to the shantytowns where the average Emirati or Chinese laborer who built those pretty empty skyscrapers lives.

Darling Jane replies:

I have been to the shanty towns of Guayaquil and Quito Ecuador, Cuzco & Lima Peru. It is the same thing.

There's a shantytown about 15 MK down the road from Dubai which has about twice the population of that pretty showcase city on the coast. It's all corrugated tin shacks, shit in the streets, and lots of hungry regularly-beaten foreign and Emirati laborers who built the Burj Dubai and all those other pretty buildings you're squealing about.

Darling Jane squeals:

Go to New Orleans, Detroit, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, etc. You get the same shit in the streets and the immigrant laborers. With the big tall empty big buildings. Why can't you see the crap in your own backyard? Always finding someone else to feel superior to aren't we?

Not crazy about the Arabs darling. I just think that we should quit tooting our own horn about being the world's greatest superpower. We are "super broke" that's it. The only thing we have more of than anyone else is missles, and Putin is on that like flies on shit.

Anonymous Darling wrote: Greed and a lack of caring about others is found all over humanity -- as is stupidity of greedy government "investors." The Chinese and the Arabs will get raped just as hard up the rear -- without lube -- as the Americans and Europeans will. And they've got big restive populations of starving, fucked-over middle class people without opportunity or hope... much larger than any western country.

We'll get some big government socialist programs and new entitlements paid for with printing press cash for a decade or two. China and the Arab world will get full-fledged revolutions kicked off by starving angry peasants who will feast upon the flesh of their rich government bureaucrats and who will trash the piss out of those fancy empty buildings in their showcase McMansion cities.

It was a Persian who invented algebra, you nitwit. Try calling a Persian (Iranian) and Arab, and they'll pound you into the ground. Anyway, he just built up on what the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians had done. Now try coming up with something that the Muslims have created in the past 1,000 years.

Perdon???

MOHAMMAD BIN MUSA AL-KHAWARIZMI(Died 840 C.E.)

Abu Abdullah Mohammad Ibn Musa al-Khawarizmi was born at Khawarizm (Kheva), south of Aral sea. Very little is known about his early life, except for the fact that his parents had migrated to a place south of Baghdad. The exact dates of his birth and death are also not known, but it is established that he flourished under Al- Mamun at Baghdad through 813-833 and probably died around 840 C.E.

Khawarizmi was a mathematician, astronomer and geographer. He was perhaps one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived, as, in fact, he was the founder of several branches and basic concepts of mathematics. In the words of Phillip Hitti, he influenced mathematical thought to a greater extent than any other medieval writer. His work on algebra was outstanding, as he not only initiated the subject in a systematic form but he also developed it to the extent of giving analytical solutions of linear and quadratic equations, which established him as the founder of Algebra.

He could very well have been of Persian descent. Are you Irish?

What exactly have you created for the world in the short time you have been alive?